


A Study in Duality

by Life_giver



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 07:34:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20903957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Life_giver/pseuds/Life_giver
Summary: Mairon was never really here in this endless void. He was stuck in Melkor's mind, a fissure of memories that came in scents and sounds to torture him in the dark. Prison was the scent of smoke, fire against his skin, whispers of devotion in his ear.





	A Study in Duality

He was like wildfire, streaking through the dead night. He was the blood coursing through the veins of this darkest of fields. Melkor watched him from up high. Mairon’s form shifted swiftly from animal to the wavering imitation of a body, the same fair one he had used to charm and seduce the humans around him when he had walked the plane of the living. And yet he never shifted into shadow as Melkor did. He was still a Maia in the deepest recesses of his soul, a soul that was not quite as deep and black as Melkor’s own. In fact, a light still burned deep inside of him, and when he took solid form, there was always fire in his hair and eyes.

He kept these traits because Melkor wanted him to. Mairon was no different than the wolves that walked beside him now, drifting through the field below, two on each side of him. His little Maia would heel only for the hand that had raised him.

He was magnificent, Ilúvatar’s perfect creation. And now he was Melkor’s banquet. It had been one of the few pleasures he’d been allowed on Arda, knowing that he’d corrupted something so pure.

He watched the lithe way Mairon moved, a hand on the neck of each monstrous wolf. He was the only thing in this dark prison that wasn’t scorched and black and ugly. Mairon walked with his chin tilted, long fingers curling into the fur of his animals. He knew that Melkor watched him in his vanity. He had even fashioned himself a crown of cold iron. He remembered placing it on Mairon’s brow on bent knee, the first time he had knelt to anyone.

_Rule beside me._

“Rule under you,” Mairon had whispered, searing his mouth with the heat of his lips. His fingers had left burns against Melkor’s cheeks.

And so he had.

Mairon had ruled him from beneath for ages, the first since he had come into being. He had released a world of chaos the last time someone had tried to push him to his knees.

Worshipping fire had left him weakened.

And yet, in this wildfire he had found the perfect synocrosity. Mairon had an uncanny ability to match his step perfectly. When Melkor moved, so did Mairon, when an order came from Mairon’s mouth, it was with Melkor’s voice. They were nearly one in the same, very nearly.

He had searched the whole of Arda for this missing piece and it had come in the form of Eru Ilúvatar’s most beloved. A bitter smile touched Melkor’s lips as Mairon’s corporeal form began to disintegrate and became light streaking away from Melkor’s dark mountain.

The world around him disintegrated slowly and he pulled the heavy chain around his ankle with him through the darkness, head bent forward in exhaustion.

Mairon was never really here in this endless void. He was stuck in Melkor's mind, a fissure of memories that came in scents and sounds to torture him in the dark. Prison was the scent of smoke, fire against his skin, whispers of devotion in his ear.

_And in the darkness bind them_

“Who's there?”

The halls echo with the soft voice. He is a flame in the darkness and Melkor had reached out for him without thinking. But now a slow thought begins to form, blooming as the Maia turns, sweeping the halls with a suspicious gaze. He is a creature of the light, almost painful to look at.

Beauty in its purest form.

“I know you’re there,” The Maia says, voice still soft and measured as he peers into the darkness. He can see the Maia’s breath on the frigid air that follows Melkor wherever he goes. “I feel you when I’m alone.”

Melkor drifts through the great columns of the halls without taking form. He can easily put together something physical, but nothing would compare with this Maia’s physical being, or the light that burns deep in his chest. He will think Melkor a monster come from the deep depths of the void. But that is exactly what he is in the eyes of the Valar.

“Are you afraid of me?” The Maia asks.

Hands settle in the heavy white robes the Maiar wears and Melkor feels a sense of rage engulf him. He sweeps past the Maia as a shadow and red hair drifts around him with the force of the wind. He had meant to scare him, but the Maia only looks back over his shoulder with a glint of curiosity in his bright eyes.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be,” Melkor whispers, his voice low and cracking with disuse as he materializes slowly from the shadows. He makes for himself a form that is fair but still shrouded in darkness. He can easily be lost in the halls again if he chooses to. But instead of reeling back in horror, the Maia only peers at him, his eyes wide with wonder.

“What are you?” The Maia reaches out with a heavily ringed hand and it is Melkor that moves away from the touch, brow creasing in confusion. His very being is draped heavy with sorrow and anger, the robes of misery are unyielding on his bent shoulders. He has been lurking in this darkness for so long now, did this Maia not feel the menace?

“I won’t hurt you,” The Maia smiles and when he does, Melkor sees the flicker of fire behind his eyes, eyes that burn nearly gold.

“You couldn’t hurt me,” Melkor laughs, the sound coming out loud and jarring, an unpleasant distortion so that for the first time, the Maia steps away from him, a hint of uneasiness permeating the air. “Even if you wanted to.”

“I know who you are.”

“Do you,” He taunts, his form beginning to waver as the shadows threaten to draw him into them. He drifts back into the darkness for a moment, slipping around the columns so that the Maia has to follow him in a circle, turning slowly, his white robes brushing the stone floor in a slow dance.

“Morgoth,” The name falls from those pure lips like the vilest of curses. “The Corruptor.” And yet there is no menace in his gaze, only stillness and a faint interest as he tracks Melkor around the columns.

“Why do you come to me of all the Maiar?”

“Because you peer into the darkness and you know no fear,” He whispers against the shell of the Maia’s delicately curved ear. Gold laces his ear in a bold statement of vanity. Ah, this Maia is proud and very aware of his beauty. He feels a shudder as he presses a hand against the Maia’s shoulder, but still there is no disgust, and Melkor feels an unfamiliar pleasure at this.

“Let me be your teacher in the darkness.”

It is then that the Maia reaches for him and a slender palm is pressed against his cold cheek. He reels back at the burning touch and watches in fascination as the Maia throws back his head and begins to laugh, white teeth flashing, eyes burning in mirth. He has never been touched by something so wrought with light. The Maia is like a child that has learned a new, cruel trick, and Melkor feels the rage return, incensed by this Maia’s vanity and insolence.

He grows in the darkness until he fills the halls with shadows and darkness falls over the Maia, snuffing the light from his chest. Melkor is power, he is the creator of all things foul and decrepit. He is the embodiment of nightmares and when he flies at the Maia in a fury, the Maia shields himself with his arms, sweeping around just as Melkor’s shadow covers the room.

“Forgive me my lord,” The Maia calls out, a tenor of distress wavering in his voice.

But Melkor has already gone, out into the wastelands he had forged with his own hands, his thoughts, his song. And yet thoughts of the bold Maia who had burned him penetrates the darkness around him, and he knows he will return, if only to gaze on something that is not afraid of him. He has found a pupil in the darkness.

Temptation beats like a war drum inside his chest.

The first time he sees blood splattered across Mairon’s ethereal face, is a moment that would be seared into his mind for all eternity.

It is the Maia’s first show of fealty. That he can take the life of his previous master’s creations at the command of his new master is a requirement for Melkor. He doesn’t trust easily when it comes to the children of Eru.

Mairon’s face is hard and cold as he stands looking at Melkor, sword scraping the ground at his feet. It is a challenging stare. Blood drips from his lower lip and Melkor finds himself wanting to kiss him, to taste the blood of Ilúvatar on that pure mouth.

_What must I do to convince you?_

He hears the thought as if Mairon has spoken it aloud.

The whisper of innocence seems all but lost in Mairon as the blood continues to drip down and stain his white robe, pool at his bare feet. His long fingers still grasp the hair of the fallen elf on the ground. The severed head stares at Melkor, mouth agape in a wordless scream.

_I want to create with you._

More than kill, Mairon wants to meld and pervert and create. But he would do whatever Melkor asked of him. He would please Melkor in whatever way he wished to be pleased. He’d already found that out, the night he’d gestured with a finger and Mairon had dropped his robes, offering his Maiar body up like a common creature. And yet, Melkor hadn’t sullied him.

He wants him to come to him on his own. He wants fealty and obedience, but he wants it at Mairon’s free will.

“Drop it,” Melkor commands, cutting Mairon’s thoughts from his mind. Mechanically, Mairon’s fingers open and the head drops with a dull thud to the ground. Silence settles between them and the acrid wind blows around Mairon’s robes, tracking them through the sticky mess of blood.

He will have to dress him in something more practical. The Maia will have to mold himself to this life he has chosen and cast off all that is Aulë and Ainu, leaving him bare for Melkor’s plans. He no longer needs to walk among the unperverted, the unpolluted, whispering their secrets into Melkor’s ears.

This is his new home.

“How far will you test me?” Mairon finally speaks, chin tilted. He is always bold with his words. It is what Melkor admires in him.

“As far as it takes," Melkor answers. Far in the distance, the shrieking of his servants can be heard at the blinding light that pours from Mairon’s body. He is a beacon still for all that Melkor abhors.

This is his first step into the dark.

The first time Mairon kneels for him, the red crown of his head bent nearly to the floor, Melkor feels a sense of victory like none other. This proud Maia, this beautiful creature with the burning touch and sharp tongue, has finally laid himself down at Melkor’s feet.

He has done the impossible. The other Valar, they have their pupils, but none would turn their face to the darkness. They fear Melkor, abhor him. But Mairon, with all his delicate grace, kneels at his feet in supplication, and in an airy show, he places a kiss to one of his boots, eyes turned upwards to him.

He has taken one of the best from Ilúvatar.

He is so very like a wild wolf coming to heel, that Melkor can only stare at him, feeling the power of the gesture rush through him in a font. He leans over on the throne he has made for himself and slides a hand beneath Mairon’s chin to bring him to his knees.

Mairon’s golden eyes burn with a deep passionate fire and without thinking, he leans down and kisses him, grabbing up a river of heavy red hair as he does so. He loves the feel of Mairon’s hair, its softness, the way it captures the intense heat that surrounds him at all times. There is a desperate urge in Melkor to raise this one to his own throne and that urge strikes a terrifying note in him. Lesser beings have fallen for thoughts like that.

He hisses at the sting of teeth against his bottom lip, and when he pulls back, Mairon is smiling.

Oh, he will raise cities for this one. It has been written in the code of his very being as if he’s never had a choice in the matter; Mairon is the fire flickering in the deep black of his soul.

He had once been bent on ruining this Maia, twisting him and tarnishing him until Ilúvatar would scream in his anguish at the ruination of one of his favorites. It had once been a great pleasure of his to think up ways in which he could bend this Maia to his dark desire, to make him unrecognizable to the light, but he now realizes he finds more pleasure in watching Mairon turn of his own will. And yet, he will always burn with a secret radiance buried deep in the darkness he now shares with Melkor. And Mairon still does as he likes, keeps his own power, and uses it as he wishes, to anger or please Melkor in turns.

And Melkor has never felt more alive for this leveling ground.

“Does this please you?” Mairon whispers, tilting his head beneath Melkor’s hands. His fingers remain curled in the wild strands of Mairon’s burning hair. Melkor presses the pad of his thumb against his full bottom lip, reddened from his kiss, and slides it against the soft skin. A slow smile is his only answer.

“I would do anything for you,” Mairon promises. “Anything,” and Melkor hears the truth in those words.

This is a fun game between them. He’d once done it only to enrage the almighty. Taking a physical form and using it to corrupt and pervert was one of his personal pleasures now. If Mairon had ever been innocent, had ever upheld the saintly morals of the Maiar, it was lost in Melkor’s bed.

His lust is insatiable.

He slides a hand against the milky pale throat beneath him slowly, feeling Mairon swallow, eyes closed, his head pressing back. He is still beneath Melkor’s weight, his breath barely a whisper. It’s only when Melkor tightens his fingers that Mairon surges beneath him, back arching, brow creasing in a spasm of pleasure. He smiles as he bends over him, lips hovering over Mairon’s mouth, fingers tightening until Mairon lifts his head and kisses him. He tastes of ash and Melkor’s nostrils fill with the smell of burning things. In another moment, he has drawn away, hissing at the pain searing against the palm of his hand.

Mairon lifts himself to his elbows, amber eyes lazy in satisfaction. A river of deep red hair lays in a curtain against his naked shoulder, and there’s a faint smile on his full lips. He enjoys toying with Melkor as much as Melkor enjoys trying to hold him down, but one could never quite pin fire down.

“Did I hurt you?” Mairon asks, his voice soft and low. His voice is always so measured, even while he carries out Melkor’s orders, he’s the dangerous calm in Melkor’s raging storm.

He moves forward again and grabs Mairon’s chin and tilts his head back roughly, looking for any sign of fear in those lidded eyes. But then, that was why Melkor had chosen this one. He holds no fear, of Melkor, of death, or the threat of oblivion that is held over their heads.

“Do you think you could hurt me?” Melkor growls. “Truly?” Mairon tilts his head to the side a little, loosening Melkor’s rough hold on his chin.

“I would never dare,” Mairon whispers viciously, holding his gaze, and as with everything that came from Mairon’s mouth, he believes it to be the truth. The Maiar could lie and deceive as every living thing could in Eru’s creation, but Mairon was of a different ilk. He truly believed what he said, and he was so wound up in Melkor’s own creations, in Melkor himself, he would be deceiving himself if he chose to turn aside.

“I belong under you,” Mairon waits a held breath and then smiles slowly as he whispers, “Master.” That term hadn’t passed Mairon’s lips in decades, and he only uses it now to tame Melkor’s anger. He only bends his head in supplication when he knows it will please Melkor. They both know his tactics well. It’s what makes Mairon the perfect lieutenant; they step in tandem, Mairon’s thoughts are not his own. They are so fused that nothing will ever render them apart and if there was ever an ounce of deception Melkor would sense it immediately.

“And so you do,” He growls, pressing Mairon back down slowly to the bed.

Mairon’s arms slide against the black sheets beneath him as he’s pressed back, outspread like a sacrifice. He would let Melkor rip him open if he wished it so. For a moment, he wants to. The urge is so strong that his fingers tighten against Mairon’s throat and Mairon’s brow creases at the pressure, but the thought drifts away from him with the other violent vices of his soul. This is one he would keep.

“Little wolf,” He murmurs, stroking the neck beneath his hand.

Mairon’s lip curls at the endearment and suddenly Melkor is on his back and it’s Mairon above him, hair a wild tangle around his bright face. He burns from the inside and Melkor shudders at the heat suddenly surrounding him as Mairon sinks down into his lap.

Sharp nails dig into his chest, drawing blood from the fragile skin. They both enjoy the frailty of these bodies and use them relentlessly when the desire strikes them. They have no need of the psychical but they always find amusement and pleasure in them nonetheless.

He winds his hand in the long hair that drapes Mairon like a shroud and pulls him down as the maia moves against him, hips fluid as water, but as wild and scorching as fire. He closes his eyes, surrendering to this mortal pleasure, letting Mairon engulf him and bring him down into the flames.

He says not a word when Mairon begins working in secret. But he watches hands as talented and crafty as Melkor’s own. But where Mairon had once crafted things of light, this new thing is an ode to the darkness he has embraced.

He understands Mairon’s thirst for creation because that seed is in his own heart. Mairon had been brought into existence with a marvelous skill. He would be cruel to deny him his nature.

A long smile curves his mouth when Mairon brings this new creation to him one night, thinking himself very clever in his secrecy; a crown made of black iron, spires reaching for the heavens, beautiful in its unforgiving sharpness. It speaks of order and strength and Melkor knows that Mairon placed a bit of his very essence, his soul, into the crown with each swing of the hammer.

Mairon stands before him but doesn’t place the crown on his head, to do so would be outright rebellion. He’s much too cunning and graceful for that sort of blunder.

“My lord,” The words slide from between his lips in a sensual hum, hands outstretched with the crown resting on his palms like an offering.

“A gift?” Melkor humors him, tugs at him as he does sometimes to see Mairon flustered.

It is a rare thing to see him caught off guard and nervous. And yet, Mairon lowers his eyes coyly, not all quite an act. For a moment Melkor sees the hesitation, the thought flitting through Mairon’s mind that maybe he has finally misstepped. Maybe he has presumed too much of his station, mistook Melkor’s great affection for him. Melkor does dote on him and Mairon does not see himself as a servant, that much is certain.

He takes the crown from him, feeling its weight. It would be heavy and unforgiving against Mairon’s pretty brow, but it would lend him the mask he so desperately wanted. His form is too pure, it echoes the song of a dead world. To look on Mairon is to look on Eru; he blinds the servants of the night with his inner light. This heavy diadem would insight fear for a king was stepping into the darkness.

“Come beloved,” Melkor murmurs low, putting him out of his misery, and Mairon’s breath quickens as he kneels for Melkor, but not in supplication. He looks up at Melkor, waiting for the burden to be placed upon him.

Melkor kneels with him so that they are level, the gesture unfamiliar to him. Mairon’s gaze flickers over his face in confusion. Mairon has thrown his weight around Angband for years, ordered his servants about, commanded Melkor’s army, even raised his voice in anger to Melkor at points as if they were truly bound in this flesh they wore like masks. But Melkor has knelt to no one since he came into being. It seems to upset the fabric of time when his knee touches the cold floor. They are both stepping into roles neither is quite sure of, but Melkor does know one thing for certain; he knows that this is what the future needs. Mairon was made for this role.

Melkor feels the power Mairon had smelt into the crown. The crown’s energy thrums against his palms as he lowers it onto Mairon’s brow. It fits seamlessly and it seems the night becomes darker, the creatures around them stirring as if they know what Melkor has just done.

He has crowned Arda’s destruction.

It hadn’t been a seduction in the traditional sense, though it was sung that way throughout history. Mairon had been drawn in by Melkor’s raw power, the swiftness in which he could execute his great plans. Mairon had seen the lord of chaos and had known he could bring order to the darkness and above all, Mairon loved order. Upon his return from the Blessed Realm, Melkor understood Mairon’s soul and its need for strength and order. He understood that Mairon’s will was like iron and he would stop at nothing to achieve his own nirvana.

In the end, it was Mairon that had become the seducer.

For the second time, Mairon holds a crown, but now he does not bend or sway before Melkor. He stands tall and proud in his black raiment, every bit the ruler, every bit the steely lieutenant. He had prepared for Melkor’s return studiously. Deep in his forge, he had brought forth beautiful creatures, and perfect order, and Melkor breathed the smoke-filled air deep into his black lungs and felt a surge of pure pleasure.

He was home.

Mairon welcomes his master with a gift, born from the rawest of his talents, palms outstretched, a long smile pulling at the edge of his full mouth. When the crown is set against his black hair by Mairon himself, Melkor bending forward for the crowning, he notices marks on the palms of Mairon’s fine-boned hands.

“They burned like ice,” Mairon says softly, long smile still firmly in place. He seems almost proud of the injuries he’d sustained. “In a way that your cold skin has never hurt me.”

“But I do hurt you,” Melkor says, grasping his chin and pulling him forward.

Their lips meet, hungry and rough after the time they’d been forced apart. Their very essences would always remain at odds with one another, even when they stepped in tandem. Eru had made sure that darkness would never fully merge with light, one would always overcome the other, but it would never wrench them apart. They shared many things in common, and one of those was the ability to feel pain. To feel at all was a gift in itself.

When he stands to his full height, his crown of glowing Silmarils makes him stand a foot taller, and he feels the power of them flood his body. Mairon’s fiery gaze is turned up at him, and there is a breathless excitement in his bright face, usually so stern and composed. He looks almost crazed with joy and adoration at Melkor’s return, and it fills Melkor with even more power.

When he takes a step forward, the ground shakes and a long crack is rent in the soil. Mairon tilts his head back as a rush of mighty wind blows his hair and robes back and the light in his chest burns brighter until he becomes blinding.

They stand on either side of the rent, pure darkness and light, flooding the blackened land and they have never felt more powerful.

“This is true beauty,” A whisper against the curve of his ear, long fingers sliding against his shoulders.

A sylph presses against his back, strokes the one thing Melkor holds dear to him, his creations, his mind. Mairon shares his eye for the dark, and in the end, that is what had sealed them together. He understands the necessity for this duality. He understands the language of music as only Melkor can.

They look down from the tower Melkor has raised for his Maia, survey the scorched land, the beasts they have created, the landscape they have painted black. He had waited so long in the darkness, thinking himself utterly alone in his desires. He had lived in a long winter before Mairon’s burning touch, and now the world is as it should be, scorched by Mairon’s fire.

Ancalagon flies overhead, the great breadth of his wingspan upsetting the air around them, and Mairon’s hair drifts about him in a great red storm. His face burns bright as he watches Ancalagon make a circle of the tower, and then fire floods from the dragon’s mouth in a great show, burning the air around them. The heat is greater than even Mairon’s skin, and Melkor strains towards it. The cold has never been his friend.

The first time Melkor had taken Mairon down into the mountains was seared into memory. He had molded and perverted life into the greatest of all dark creatures and he had wanted Mairon to see how great his power was. He wanted Mairon to see that he could create fear itself.

There had been the smallest pulse of confused terror in Mairon at the sight of Ancalagon, curled like an enormous breathing mountain, deep in the darkness. His great wings folded about himself and when Ancalagon’s golden eyes opened and the heat of his breath filled the cave, Mairon had recognized Ancalagon as one of his own. Fire always found itself and consumed everything in its raging path. He always wondered why Mairon had sought the bitter cold of his soul.

Mairon had reached out then without any fear, pale hand dwarfed against the black scaled skin of Ancalagon’s nose, as if he were petting one of his beloved wolves. And Ancalagon had recognized Mairon. He doubted a blast of fire would have hurt the Maia, who was fire in itself, but they had only looked at one another, Maia and creature, and then Ancalogon had closed his golden eyes, so like Mairon’s own, and went back to his slumber.

Mairon had looked back at Melkor with a sense of wonder and knowing. The creature was too like him.

Ancalagon had been created in Mairon’s image and he had only realized his own intentions when the deed was done. It was his own oath of fealty. He had fallen as the small creatures of Arda had, when they found someone that sang to their soul. It was then truly, that his need for Mairon reached a crescendo and he knew that together they would create beauty out of this land.

Mairon’s hand slides down over his chest of plaited armor, gold glinting on his slender fingers. Only Mairon had ever looked on Melkor’s work and called it beautiful.

“I will carry your work on, whatever happens from this moment,” Mairon whispers. “Your thoughts are my own, your words come from my mouth.”

“And I will raise the dead for you when the time comes,” Melkor promises with severity in his voice. If he was vanquished, he would raise himself, he would pound and break down the Door of Night to return to the other half of his soul.

Nothing would ever render them apart.

A quickening of excited breath against the side of his neck, a curled fist against his breastplate. He feels Mairon’s lust like a lick of fire against his neck. He wants to drag Mairon back inside, throw him to the floor, and fuck him until that soft voice of his is crying out his name. He wants Mairon kneeling in front of him, but not in supplication. He wants to gather up that deep red hair and pull him forward to worship something else entirely. He sees that last bit as a thought forming in Mairon’s mind. Their thoughts link seamlessly in this world they’ve created together. Power is desire for Mairon, and it takes only giving a little to him to have him weak in the knees.

They are adept at giving each other what they desire most. Mairon had given his very essence to Melkor and in the end, he will hand him Arda, blackened and beautiful, his alone to take.

He feels unworthy, ashamed, craven. He’s like a dog limping away from a fight, knowing he has lost. Even with Fingolfin vanquished, he has lost in the most important way, and the eyes that follow his retreat….they all know. Some even hang their heads to share in his shame.

When he hears the hard tap of boots on the marble floors, rushing after him, he’s quick to shut the large double doors behind him with a resounding thud and bring the latch down hard to keep them apart from one another.

“Melkor!” His name comes first in a willful growl through the door with an accompanying bang of an armed fist, but when the seconds tick away in a bed of silence, “Master,” Soft, and then louder in a wail that makes Melkor’s black heart shudder. Only Mairon could wrench such a reaction from him.

He can feel Mairon on the other side of those heavy doors and yet he leaves them locked as he goes to his rest. He imagines his little Maia, now crowned and fierce and perhaps stronger than even he is these dark days, sitting on the floor, awash in his silver armor and black robes like a child waiting to be forgiven and let back inside. It isn’t Mairon’s fault, this fall, this immeasurable blunder. But it had been Mairon who had pushed, and Melkor, when seeing those golden eyes looking up at him in expectation, had given in, as he now did with all things Mairon asked of him.

“He is but one creature, a small one at that,” Mairon had whispered against his ear with a soft laugh. “And you are darkness itself.”

But Mairon had not seen the fury in that High King’s eyes, the burning of centuries of hatred in the hands that held his sword aloft. If Fingolfin had had the ability to shift form he would have been in flames, hotter than Mairon burned in the dead of night in their tower. Fury like that could move mountains, it could bring down even the greatest of gods.

Melkor had known, that either choice he made that night would have wounded him beyond repair. To laugh and dismiss Fingolfin would have put a craven crown on his head, to fight him and earn even one wound from him, would shake his servant’s belief in his invincibility. He had been given seven great wounds and they would follow him to the end days.

In the dead of night, he wakes to a shape coming through the window and in the dark, a sleek black wolf walks as if it is hunting prey, head low to the ground.

As he watches it approach the bed, the shape slowly shifts into the slender form of Mairon, heavy armor cast aside. His form is so much smaller without the bright, heavy raiment he wore on the battlefield, meant to intimidate. He wears simple black robes, his hair unbound and wild about his face.

“You cannot shut me out.” Mairon’s soft voice pierces through the darkness and as he draws closer to the bed, Melkor finds that his face glistens strangely in the lowlight. “I will always find you.”

“Do you promise?”

Warm hands draw back the heavy coverlet of the bed and hands find the deep wounds Fingolfin had driven into him and he hides his scarred face against the bed in his agony. He cannot meet those golden eyes. He imagines them full of shame. But when he feels Mairon begin to bind his wounds with gentle hands, he chances a look and finds Mairon’s face softened and patient. It has been long since he’d seen anything but steel from Mairon. The light from his chest had been dimmed living in this darkness these long centuries, and the weight of power had driven his shoulders down. He is no longer beloved of Ilúvatar, hardly Maiar, only a shadow that grows with each day and would soon cover the world.

“My wolves grow hungry tonight,” Mairon murmurs as he works. “Denied their feast.”

Even now, one of those monstrous beasts paces restlessly outside of the cracked bedroom door. He had watched Mairon curiously at times, burying his face in their thick fur in a frenzy of affection, allowing them to follow him around everywhere he went, to lick at his palms, and even sleep at his feet. He’d retained a bit of warmth from his time in Valinor, and Melkor had allowed it, for moments like this. He would not break Mairon of his core because he himself strained towards that warmth.

With a single snap of Mairon’s fingers, the wolf outside the door comes to heel, whimpering in disappointment. Melkor remains silent, feeling the anger in Mairon’s softly spoken words, the irate hammering of his own heart. He had broken the body, but his victory had been stolen from him. His enemies should have been made to weep without a burial. Mairon’s beasts should have been full of his adversary tonight.

When Mairon is done, he lifts Melkor’s face to his and presses his warm lips to the thick cut on his cheek. The heat is pleasurable against his cold skin, and Mairon leans his forehead against Melkor’s own. They both know the cut will scar, leaving this form marred.

“Create another,” Mairon whispers but he only shakes his head. This will be the last form he would create and he will leave the scars, the ugly limp in his walk, to remind himself of the blight he is removing from this world.

When they pull away from one another, there is a question in Melkor’s eyes that Mairon answers immediately. Some had fled in the night, he remembers the shrieking as Fingolfin drove the first sword thrust into him.

“My place is here,” Mairon says, hands still framing his face, warming his cold skin. “I belong under you.”

And this time the words feel like a confession.

They are truly alone now, and they could be all things in one another’s presence.

Some would call that love, but what did darkness know of that?

The door to the library is open, a sliver of candlelight flickering on the stone floor. Melkor steps inside, melding with the dark, eyes adjusting slowly to the torches and candles flickering in their iron sconces.

Why had they needed a library in the fortress?

To keep the ledgers, Mairon had told him in a curt voice.

Mairon is a lover of books and paper and learning, he keeps meticulous records of the goings on in Angband. He had taken to recording the history of their reaching shadow within these stone walls. From floor to ceiling Mairon keeps his ledgers, his history books in his neat handwriting.

“We’re rewriting the history of Arda,” Mairon had told him when the library was being built for him. He almost suspects that Mairon merely wanted a space to hide away in when Melkor’s anger spread across Angband like a dark cloud.

The scratch of pen to parchment can be heard among the books and beneath that, a strange whispering. Melkor cannot understand the words though he strains to make them out. They are in a language he does not know, and yet he knows all languages on Arda. With a creased brow he sweeps through the neat stacks of books and finds a dark shape bent over a desk. His face immediately softens when he sees that it is only Mairon, hard at work on his ledgers. But still the frantic whispering continues and it seems to come from all around him, dark and harsh and angry.

He bends to Mairon, touches the red river of his hair to pull aside and the whispering falls silent at once. Mairon’s body stiffens in minute surprise but he relaxes when Melkor only pulls his hair aside so that he can press his lips to the warm nape of his neck.

“What was that strange tongue?” Melkor asks softly, pressing another kiss to the long curve of Mairon’s neck. His skin tastes of smoke and ash.

“I could not understand it.”

“You wouldn’t,” Mairon replies softly, turning his head a little. In the candlelight, his soft features flicker and dance so that Melkor cannot read him, a rare thing. “It is something I’ve been working on for a long time.”

“So much anger.”

Always creating, always building something with that complex mind, those skilled hands. Melkor picks one of Mairon’s hands from the desk, the one holding the black feathered quill, and Mairon doesn’t take his hand back or snip at Melkor when the ink drips and runs in rivelets over the harsh characters he had been printing.

Melkor turns Mairon’s slender hand over, reveling in the warmth, the softness of his skin, his many rings, some of them given to him by Melkor, some made by Mairon himself. All that gold glinting in the candlelight, and then his eyes are drawn to the parchment.

“It’s very ugly,” Melkor laughs against the curve of his ear. “The writing and the speech. Nothing like your mother tongue.”

A shiver of lust creeps down his spine as his mind pulls from its depths, the sound of Mairon moaning, muffling the musical sounds of Valarin into Melkor’s sheets. Mairon was always ashamed when delirious pleasure pulled that highest of languages from him, but it always filled Melkor with even more desire for the fire spirit in his bed. Melkor himself hadn’t let the oldest speech pass his lips in centuries.

“That is the exact purpose of this,” Mairon’s tone turns irritated and Melkor laughs against his skin, twisting his hair into a neat rope and laying it over a slender shoulder. Mairon loves neatness and this Melkor knows well and uses that fact whenever he can.

“It will be the language of this land,” Mairon continues, voice softening at Melkor’s soothing gesture. A bitter smile even threatens to tug at his lips.

For once, it was not Melkor who burned with anger. He had only seen his usually composed Maia in grief and fury once, and it had shaken him to his core. The enraged sound that had issued from Mairon’s throat the moment Fingolfin had driven the first sword thrust into Melkor, was a sound he would not soon forget. It had bounded off the walls around them, pierced him deeply, and frightened their enemy. Mairon was so like one of his wolves when his world was threatened.

“What brought this on?”

Mairon takes his hand away and continues forming the jarring letters on the parchment, face tight in concentration. He can almost hear the hard tapping of Mairon’s heart in the silence. He brushes the back of his fingers down the curled rope of Mairon’s hair, waiting patiently.

“I was a bound prisoner when you found me,” Mairon murmurs, his hand flowing swiftly but carefully over the parchment. Melkor tilts his head, wondering at his words, at the incomprehensible message bleeding into the parchment.

“You cut my binds and for the first time I was free. I could create without fear of retribution or punishment. For the first time, sitting on the throne, watching you face down the enemy, I felt fear. True fear flooded my veins when your blood was drawn.”

Melkor’s brow creases as he moves into the light of the candle to see Mairon’s face better. It is twisted in vehemence, and he sees the wheels turning in those golden eyes. He has never seen such hatred in Mairon’s face and it is a horrifying juxtaposition to the purity of his beauty.

“This is our language.” Mairon says, finally setting the quill down.

He leans forward so that the candlelight is reflected in his eyes, flickering in their liquid depths. He can smell the faint scent of smoke and fire that always lingers on Mairon’s skin. Beneath his ink-stained hand is a chaotic blur of words that he suddenly hears again in those dark, sharp whispers. The sound rises all around him, louder and louder, until it reaches a pounding crescendo in Melkor’s mind.

“The language of the new world,” Mairon says sharply in the black speech.

Mairon stands looking down at the ruined battlefield. He feels a strange pulse in his chest, an old song trying to revive itself. He is not that light anymore, had not been for centuries. He feels the ground shake beneath him, a warning. This tower that he had built in Melkor's name, reaching for the great chasm above them, is going to fall and he was going down with it.

He laces his hands behind his back and tilts his face towards the black sky. Smoke chokes his lungs and yet he is still as death as he lets the pain gnaw his chest to bits. He wants to feel the fury, wants to become the rage flooding his veins.

He takes a step to the edge of the crumbling tower. He is going to ruin this beautiful form he had made to entice the followers of Melkor, the worshippers of a banished lover. All this work for nothing. For nothing.

_Do you promise?_

For a moment, he is bleeding, he watches the red seeping from his mortal form. And then he is in Melkor’s arms, lifted from the ground, his head falling back to watch the smoke drifting across the grey sky. Fingers drift across his brow, hears a voice pulling him away from the void of eternity. Fire burns somewhere and he reaches a hand out for it, but Melkor cradles him against his plate of armor and he is safe in the darkness again.

Just a memory of a lost battle, one of many.

Melkor is not coming down from the heavens to save him this time. He is pounding his fists against the Door of Night, his iron crown hewn around his neck, and his mouth is a voiceless scream in Mairon’s nightmares.

Mairon drops his head into his soot covered hands until he hears thunder roaring in the distance, the waves coming to claim him. He watches Ulmo’s rage with wide eyes, tears staining his soot covered face, and he is in awe. It reminds him of the first time he’d seen Melkor’s true form rising from the depths of the darkness.

He has been playing with gods and they have deemed him unworthy of their game.

“Strike me down!” He cries to the ocean, but his voice is lost on the acrid wind. He is nothing against the anger of Ilúvatar.

It is time to go back to the beginning, when he had been only energy, drifting aimlessly. He will gather the darkness to himself, and allow his grief and fury to become a storm of his own making. All he had done in Melkor’s name, he will continue to do beyond the grave. He will bring Arda into a night so dark, Ilúvatar’s children will weep in terror and anguish as all they love is ripped from their hands. He will bring down a swift vengeance for all that he has lost in this life.

His face twists and he falls to his knees as the tower gives a great groan and begins its slow descent into the ocean. The waves come up to meet his ruination, the wind rushes past his face and he feels his soul soaring.

He will rise from the ashes and be all things.

_I will always find you._

**Author's Note:**

> This one is dedicated to fire_druidess who is my partner in crime when it comes to the dark husbands lmao


End file.
